novelsite Chapter 42 Longing is Never Ending
Chapter 42 Longing is Never Ending
Jiang Xingni pushed open the door and saw... two pieces of paper outside?
She genuinely didn't know what words to use to accurately describe the two people standing outside the door.
Jiang Xingni looked up at the two people, scanning them up and down before his gaze finally settled on the tops of their heads.
Above the two people's heads, the points of light slowly formed two large characters.
One is "Dad", and the other is "Mom".
Jiang Xingni fell into deep thought.
Although it shouldn't be, the system couldn't help but gloat at this moment.
"Star, the parents you didn't get when you were little have finally come to you now," the system said with a grin.
Jiang Xingni:
Sometimes, Jiang Xingni felt that she didn't really need parents.
Especially these kinds of parents.
She glanced once more at her parents, who were bathed in golden light, with disdain.
More accurately, they are two paper figures.
If he didn't have the Eye of Truth, Jiang Xingni imagined what he would see right now.
Outside the door, her long-deceased parents would push open the door and look at her with smiles, just like a scene from a dream, just like the scene that seven-year-old Jiang Xingni had been looking forward to.
If it were seven-year-old Jiang Xingni, she might actually be bewitched.
If Jiang Xingni didn't have the Eye of Truth, he might be momentarily stunned upon seeing his parents' faces.
But Jiang Xingni is no longer a seven-year-old child, nor is he an ordinary person who would be misled by false appearances.
The little girl looked up at the person in front of her.
Unlike the placental people, they are quite similar to other things in the ghost realm.
The facial features and hair drawn on the paper were crudely made, and the clothes looked like they were just randomly painted on, with blank spaces left because they were not evenly applied.
When they looked at Jiang Xingni, their four beady eyes curved into a thin, curved line.
Sunlight streamed in from behind, and Jiang Xingni could even see the rough, uneven marks on the paper.
Jiang Xingni silently took a step back. To be honest, if it weren't for the two words above their heads, "Dad" and "Mom," it would be hard to believe.
Jiang Xingni never imagined that these two pieces of paper would actually be her parents.
She remained silent for a while, and just as the crooked lines on the paper doll's face, which seemed to have been drawn on, gradually smoothed out and the upward curve decreased, clearly indicating that she was unhappy, Jiang Xingni finally spoke.
"Dad?" Jiang Xingni looked up at one of the paper figures with short hair and the word "Dad" on his head.
Then she looked at the paper doll with curly hair and the word "Mom" on its head: "Mom?"
"They..." Jiang Xingni wanted to say specific names, but ten years had passed, and she had almost completely forgotten. "Whatever," Jiang Xingni thought calmly. "They told me you were all dead."
The little girl choked up twice, and tears suddenly fell down her cheeks.
Her eyes were red and swollen, and she sobbed softly, tears streaming down her cheeks and falling to the ground.
The young girl still had baby fat on her face, and when she cried, she sobbed pitifully.
If the system doesn't know her true nature, it will most likely be misled by her face.
"I've been waiting for you," she whispered. "I've been thinking that once I wake up, you'll be able to knock on the door and come in, just like before."
"It's like I just had a very long nightmare, but nightmares eventually end. After I wake up, you'll still be able to stay by my side."
The two paper figures visibly stiffened for a moment, staring at each other blankly before realizing their beloved daughter was crying.
So the two paper figures hurriedly—heaven knows how Jiang Xingni could tell from their movements that they were "hurriedly"—one of them hugged Jiang Xingni, while the other squatted down beside him, earnestly babbling on and on about something.
Jiang Xingni was too lazy to listen.
And she can't hear anything at all.
The words spoken by the paper doll were completely silent and could not reach Jiang Xingni's ears.
All she could see were small black square characters popping out of their mouths, slowly floating in the air, forming a word, and then exploding with a bang after forming a complete sentence, disappearing without a trace.
"What a great comic." Jiang Xingni remained silent for a while, then couldn't help but sigh inwardly. "This world is also a comic, but why don't Pei Zhaoye and the others look like this?"
Jiang Xingni was just talking; she imagined what would happen if Pei Zhaoye, Xiao Jiming, and the others all turned into paper cutouts—or rather, not just them, but the whole world turned into these paper cutouts…
The little girl's expression twisted strangely; she found it difficult to imagine the specific appearance of that world.
"After all, you live in this world." The system explained casually, but Jiang Xingni perked up his ears.
"For you, this world is real—do you know what narrative layers are?" The system continued to explain, seeing Jiang Xing's curious expression.
Simply put, the plot of the wordless book is all created by you. This eerie realm exists within a narrative layer below you, so in your eyes, they are just two-dimensional characters.
[You and Pei Zhaoye are on the same narrative level, while the three-dimensional readers belong to a higher narrative level. In their eyes, you are also two-dimensional characters.]
After the system explained it this way, Jiang Xingni blinked and realized what the most fundamental problem was—if Jiang Xingni herself could resist the setting and plot of the wordless book, then could the comic resist the plot of the three-dimensional author?
Jiang Xingni didn't know.
She lowered her eyes, concealing the wavering look in them, and then pretended not to have noticed anything, continuing to act coquettishly towards the two paper figures without any emotional fluctuation.
"Mom, I miss you so much..." Jiang Xingni said calmly and softly. This time, she didn't look at the paper figure with the word "Mom" on its head to see what it was saying.
The girl, now shrunk to seven years old, silently clutched the edge of the paper doll. The emotions welling up in her mind were so intense that even she herself didn't know whether they were part of a performance or a fleeting, genuine outpouring of feeling influenced by her younger age.
Jiang Xingni didn't know.
"This is what you... want to say to your parents, right?" the system whispered in Jiang Xingni's mind.
Jiang Xingni remained silent for a while before giving his answer.
"These are the words I said in my dream," she said calmly to herself. "These are words I never expected to hear in return."